UFC 86 quick preview, two beers

Beers first:

14 – Robinson’s Unicorn (4.2%) – 7, I have no idea why they changed the name of it from best bitter a couple of years ago. In any case it tastes much the same and is a fairly standard bitter which is unspectacular but you can’t go wrong with it.

15 – Dark Star Old Ale (4.0%) – 7.5, great dark red colour with a stout-esque flavour, somewhat smoky with hints of caramel, worth a try if you like darker beers.

The UFC also returns this weekend with the much anticipated light-heavyweight title fight between Ultimate Fighter coaches Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin. This ought to be a good fight, although I really can’t see any other result than a stoppage in favour of Rampage, probably in the 3rd or 4th. Griffin is a big fan favourite (and as a result I took him in the second round of the MMA draft we’re doing on 2+2), and is probably worth a shot, but is also rather overrated.

Elsewhere we have an interesting middleweight fight between Patrick Cote and Ricardo Almeida, with the winner likely to be wanting to be next to fed to Anderson Silva after he dominates Okami in all likelihood, although Silva stepping up to fight Irvin at 205 raises questions to that. I think there’s slight value in Tibau as a 2-1 dog against Stevenson, Koscheck’s bout with Lytle looks an inevitable win for Josh in a “who cares” fight, and Tyson Griffin against Aurelio could well steal fight of the night, with Aurelio looking overpriced and worth a small punt. Undercard is underwhelming, Gonzaga’s looking to get back to winning ways after recent losses against big names in Couture and Werdum and really should be very comfortable against a mediocre Justin McCully, aside from that there’s not a great deal of interest. Report will follow on Sunday evening, thanks to Bravo’s tape delay.